Healing Wounds
by Kasorin
Summary: A possible follow-up to Warriors. Written before the episode aired, in response to Wounded.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Written in response to (name). Set after season 2 finale which has not yet aired at the time of writing. I do not own any of the characters or the show.

* * *

I fill in another line of the crossword. Next to me, Kate is asleep soundly.

"This is cute." Natalie perches on the arm of the couch by Kate's feet.

"You'll wake Kate." I reply absently, filling in another line.

"She can't hear me Daniel. How can I wake her if she can't hear me?" Natalie retorts, but she smiles down at Kate. "Never thought you'd actually invite her for a sleepover."

"She's the only one sleeping Nat."

Kate mutters something unintelligible and sits up.

"Who're you talkin' to?" She asks, yawning. "Oh, crap. What timesit?"

"Natalie. And it's morning. When do you have to go to the FBI?"

Kate scrubs her face with both hands, giving me ample time to study her. Shooting Rickford and the trial that followed took a toll on her. She looks paler, and in spite of sleeping almost ten hours on my couch dark shadows ring her eyes. Even after I had seen her in the library until nearly three in the morning night after night when she was my student, I had never seen her look so… weak.

"Noon. I should go home, shower."

Lewicki's footsteps echo down the stairs. "Hey, Doc…" He pauses. "Oh, sorry, Kate. I didn't realize that you had stayed the night."

"Neither did I." She sighed.

"It's going to be fine, Kate." I say, and put down the crossword. "And if the FBI doesn't want you back, you can always take Lewicki's job."

This makes Kate shake her head and smile. She rises and slips into the kitchen with Lewicki, and I can hear them speaking quietly, Lewicki inviting her to stay long enough to eat breakfast.

"If you want her to stay, you could just ask her to marry you" Natalie points out as I gather up my crossword and head towards the kitchen.

"That's absurd, Natalie. We haven't even begun dating, how can I ask her to marry me if we haven't dated?" I realize to late that I've finished the sentence when Kate drops a glass.

"Sorry. I'll buy you a new one Daniel. New girlfriend?" She drops out of sight behind the island.

"Just Natalie being… Natalie."

"Oh." Kate dumps the broken glass into the trash and sits down. "Who does Natalie want you to marry?"

"She…she…" I swallow. "Are you done destroying my dishware?"

"Nice diversion." Kate leans across the island. "I'll get the answer out of you somehow. Do you mind if I catch your first class? I should have enough time for it, before I have to head back to my apartment to make myself presentable for… you know…"

"You're not a kid, Kate. You don't have to ask permission." I reply and look back to my crossword.

Natalie's eyes bore into me.

"Shut up Nat." I mutter. "If it would make you happier to have my permission, then, no, I don't mind. I… I've missed having you in my class." I stand up and go upstairs to get dressed, wishing that Natalie wouldn't follow me with her knowing stare.

* * *

"I forgot how much I missed your lectures." Kate comments as she walks with Lewicki and I back to my office.

I wave him inside in front of us and stop to brush Kate's hair behind her ear. She twitches back and blushes before clearing her throat and smoothing the wayward strand back again, trying to hand the blush.

"I… should go."

"Call or do that typing thing on the phone when you get done." I catch her hand and watch her eyes.

If it weren't for the students, if it weren't for the fact that Paul could walk up at any moment, or that Kate had arranged for Donnie to pick her up from outside my office since her car was still technically impounded. If it weren't for the fact that I was paranoid schizophrenic, and that I regularly talked to door and walls. I still couldn't get Kate's face out of my mind, from when she first was hit with the reality of my condition.

"Kate." Donnie's voice causes me to pull my hand away. "You ready to go?"

She sighs. "Okay. I'll… I'll text Lewicki later, Daniel."

Then she walks down the hallway, shoving Donnie's hand away when he tries to put it against her back, and I dig out my walkman, cranking up the music. Kate is going to be fine. She has to be. She was cleared of all charges – it was found that he shot first. Sure, there was the issue of trespassing, but they had been seen together at some bar so Donnie had put together an argument that Rickford had convinced her to come back to his house, and it wasn't until after that that he had pulled the gun on her.

It's near impossible to concentrate on teaching, on engaging my students in my lectures. Perhaps they can sense my unease.

"Stop comparing your students to dogs." Natalie chides when I duck out into the quad between classes, glad that I have an hour to breathe this time. "Most humans aren't that good on picking up signals. You weren't that out of sorts, Lewicki would have brought you back down if you had been."

I ignore her and clamp my headphones over my ears, drowning her words with the swells of music.

A hand touches my arm and I look up, pull down the head phones.

"Kate. I thought you were going to call. Or text."

Kate sits next to me and stares up at the tree branches overhead. Tears glisten in the corner of her eye.

"Oh no. You didn't-"

"I'm on suspension for two weeks. For reckless endangerment." Her voice is shaky. "I thought the trial was going to be the worst of it, after I figured out that he actually didn't rape her."

"That was worse?" I hesitate, and put my own hand over hers.

If I had just listened, instead of being too wrapped up with Miranda…

"Much worse. I was terrified the whole time I wasn't going to get my badge back. The way they were talking, I was almost certain…" She sits up straight and flips her hand over, weaving her fingers between mine. "It's over now. I have my badge, and got my car out of the impound lot. I guess things will get back to normal." She sighs. "I'm welcome to invade your classes during the next two weeks right?"

"Of course. Getting put on suspension the last time made you shoot someone. I don't think I want you shooting anyone else Kate."

She swats my arm and laughs softly. I stand and pull her to her feet, letting our joined hands dangle between us as we walk silently back to my office. This time, I don't care about the students or Paul or Lewicki. I want to keep holding her hand. The tears I saw in her eyes are dry now, and that is what is most important.

Just outside my office, I pull Kate in close and brush my lips against her forehead.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This was supposed to be a one-shot. Kate had other plans. It should be noted that this chapter will be in her point of view.

* * *

I lock the door behind me and toss my keys onto the half wall that separates the entry from the kitchen. At least they've given me back my personal weapon, the one that I shot Rickford with. Maybe now I can get sleep when I'm not on Daniel's couch, and maybe the dreams will stop.

Maybe Daniel will kiss me where it actually counts while pigs fly over our heads.

I bend down to scoop up my cat and rub my fingers through her fur. She lets out a vibrating purr and cuddles into me, forgetting her annoyance at my disappearance the night before, and not feeding her until midway through the morning. Poor thing probably thought I had gotten arrested and she'd have to live with my dad for an unknown amount of time again.

Grace twists in my arms, and I let her jump to the floor. Brushing a tuft of grey fur from my blazer, I follow her insistent miews to the kitchen and get her dinner ready before staring into my nearly empty fridge. Max's insistence the night before that I stay for dinner with him and Daniel had been wonderful, I was just about ready to give up on the 'cooking for myself' idea that I had come up with. Cleaning up after was the worst part.

A knock at the door makes me gasp and clench my fingers tight around the door handle.

Why do people have to knock in threes?

I force myself to breathe deeply for a count of twelve, and shut the door just as another knock comes. Not Daniel, he would have knocked again sooner. The time catches my eye as I near the door.

Crap.

I was supposed to go see Caroline again. Why in the world the bureau had chosen her for my therapist was beyond me. At least this time I agreed that talk therapy might help with the fact that I shot someone. Killed someone. This time, that someone was innocent. That was what was stealing my sleep at night.

I sigh and open my door at the third knock.

"You didn't come today. Or answer your phone when I called during what was supposed to be our session." Caroline Newsome states.

"I was enjoying myself at one of Daniel's lectures. If you want to help me with my supposed PTSD would you mind knocking in a different pattern? We're trained to shoot in three-round bursts." I step back and motion her in.

She did say that she'd come to my house if I didn't show up, made me agree to it so that I could get back to field work faster.

I now regret that agreement.

"I brought dinner." She holds up a bag of Chinese food. "Thought it would be the least that I could do since I am invading you at dinner time. Besides, I'm seeing a movie at seven, and I'd like to eat before that."

I nod once, and motion to the table.

If only she had let me see Daniel when he checked himself into Rexford. Maybe then I wouldn't have such an issue with the woman – she had only known him for a few days! I'd known him for years, certainly far better than anyone could get to know him in a few days. Of course, I'm fairly certain that at some point she slept with Daniel. Max mentioned that Caroline and Natalie are – or were – the same person. If I had hallucinated someone for years, and finally found their real-life version and got to know them, maybe date them…

I shove the thought as far from my mind as possible. I don't want to think about Daniel dating.

"Kate?" Caroline prods.

"Hmmm?"

"How have you been sleeping?"

"Still horrible. Nightmares most nights. Last night was better, only woke up once or twice from the nightmares." I answer and poke at my food.

"Anything you did different last night?"

Not that I really want to tell you. "I slept at a friends."

"Daniel's?"

"What makes you think that it was his house?"

"Because your life before the shooting was work. That or spending a few limited hours with your father. Hardly any time for friends or dating. When I asked in our first session about your friends, you told me three names. Daniel, Max, and your ex-husband."

I want to argue that I could have been with Donnie, but that will just convince her more that I was with Daniel.

"I went over there to talk, mostly just for the company rather than stay here all day, and Max insisted I stay for dinner. Daniel went off about some new concept about early detection of brain anurisems and I stayed because it was fascinating, what the research that he had found was actually suggesting, and I guess I fell asleep… I woke up once or twice, and I knew I wasn't here because Grace wasn't here and I wasn't on a bed… But, for some reason, I wasn't kept up by the nightmares. I was able to get back to sleep fairly easily. Then I woke to him telling Natalie not to wake me up."

"He still isn't taking his medicine?"

I shrug. "I haven't asked. It isn't my business." And it isn't hers.

There is a pounding at my door. I know without having to look through the peephole that it's Daniel, but I check anyway just so she won't know how often Daniel come over.

"Kate! I won't work with them!" Daniel half-shouts, shoving past me and dumping his bag onto one of the chairs in the living area.

"Won't work with who, Daniel?" I ask, locking the door again and turning to face him.

Caroline did say she wanted to see my work interactions. Which seeing them genuinely would be impossible unless it was all filmed secretly. Daniel isn't the type to care when he gets into one of these moods.

"The FBI."

"You do work with the FBI. You solve cases with me."

"Yes, but I'm working with you. Not them."

"Then just tell them that you aren't interested in taking on the case." I answer and sit down in the chair I usually take when he rants at me.

"But I-i-I Can't." He shifts slightly, and I am amazed that he hasn't notice Caroline.

Unless he thinks that she is Natalie.

"You were told a few details of the case, and now you want to work on it. Just not with the agents on the case." I translate his reluctance.

"No, that's not… Well, yes. I… What's Natalie doing eating Chinese with you?"

I sigh. "Daniel, that's not Natalie. Do you remember when I said the FBI was making me do talk therapy before I was reinstated?"

"Not Natalie – Why is Caroline… "

I lift an eyebrow at him and go over to the table to put away the leftovers. There is no way that I am going to be able to eat any more, not while both of them are staring at each other.

What if he is supposed to be her date to the movies?

"Kate, what we were talking about, if that person's presence even from that distance was able to calm the dreams, why don't you see if that person would be willing to sleep with you?" Caroline says gently.

I drop the container of Mushu pork.

* * *

By the time I've gotten my heart rate under control, Grace has helped me to clean up most of the spilled pork. I toss the damp rag I used to mop up the last bit of sauce and toss it into the sink before collapsing at the table where Daniel and Caroline have been sitting in silence.

"We'll talk Friday." Caroline says to me sternly, heading towards the door just as someone else knocks at it.

I groan and step in front of her. Donnie.

Great.

"Uh, Kate? Is Caroline here?" He greets me when I open the door.

Really, he is her date? There has got to be something ethically wrong with that on some level even if I am not married to the man. I step to the side to let he slip past and out into the hallway before shutting the door and locking it again.

"It feels like grand central station in here." I mutter, and choose to flop onto the couch instead.

"Sleep with who?" Daniel asks, sitting in one of my chairs. He waves a hand in the air, as if brushing aside something, a sign that Natalie is talking to him.

"I… I'm sure I have no idea." I manage to squeak out.

_Idiot._ I tell myself instead. _Like hell he is going to believe that. _What was she thinking? She knows what Daniel is like! They were together; she has to know that there is no way that I'd ever be any closer to him than sleeping on the couch while he's in his bed. He'd never sleep at my house – even his late night calls throw off his routine and Max fusses me.

"Kate."

"Daniel." Two can play the stern tone game.

"You've been having nightmares? Even though the trial is over?"

The concern in his eyes scares me. I've hardly ever seen him look at me like that. Really look at me like that. Sometimes, there are glances. Like when I do something he deems as dangerous. Jumping off of fire escapes is one. But he hasn't looked at me like that since Rexford.

"Nightly." I choose the simple answer. "PTSD. Which is why I'm still stuck with Caroline even though I've been reinstated. After my suspension is over, I still can't go back into the field until she says so."

"And she is suggesting sex as the answer?"

Grace jumps up into my lap and I concentrate on watching her fur slide beneath my fingers as I stroke her. How can I look him in the eye for that? It is the most idiotic idea I've ever heard come out of a therapist's mouth. And I can tell from Daniel's tone that he probably thinks the same thing.

"I think she meant sleep as in 'sleep in the same bed' not as in 'sex'." I say carefully.

Though with the person Caroline was talking about, I'd take either. I would of course love the latter, but the former would be just as wonderful. Maybe even better.

_Get it together Kate._ I tell myself. _Yes, it's been well over a year. But it's Daniel. He doesn't think of you that way._

"You woke me screaming once last night." He stops my hands, taking them in his own. "Something tells me that one time screaming during the night is very little, for you."

I refuse to look at him. When did he turn so caring on me?

"Let's take part in Caroline's experiment. I'll sleep on your bedroom floor. We'll use your couch cushions to make a cot. If you don't have as many nightmares as you did last night, maybe she has a point. If last light was just a fluke, you can tell her to shove it on Friday."

"I do like the second part of your idea." I don't want Daniel to sleep on the floor.

"Good. Can I use your phone to call Lewicki and tell him I won't be home tonight? The last time I stayed out all night, he went all 'mom' on me."


	3. Chapter 3

"Kate! Kate!"

I thrash against the hands shaking me and sit up. My cheeks are wet, and it takes a few seconds to realize that it was Daniel shaking me awake. Not the cellmate. Trying to gasp quietly, I wipe the tears from my face and pull away from him. There is no way that I will let him know why I was sobbing. Waking to wet pillows were the only signs that I was still having that dream after I was released.

The dream where I shoot Daniel instead of Rickford.

Him sleeping in the same room as me was a stupid idea.

"Come on, I'll make you some tea." Daniel pulls me from bed and out into the kitchen.

While he searches my cabinets, I fold my arms on the table and hid my face in them. He'll want to talk about the dream, or he'll just sit and stare at me over his mug until I grow uncomfortable and blurt it out. And embarrass myself. I always do that around Daniel.

"Do you even have any tea?"

"Narrow cabinet to the right of the stove. Top shelf. There's chamomile. And honey up there too, I think it still should be useable." I say to the table.

A minute or so later, a cup is set next to my elbow, and I reluctantly rise up out of my hiding spot.

"I think I preferred waking to you screaming, Kate." Daniel said, sitting down across from me.

Right.

Daniel mutter something into his cup, and I can't help but wonder if Natalie agrees with me. It's slightly creepy, wanting one of his delusions to agree with an opinion I'm too wimpy to voice.

I'm scared to talk. Scared that if I even meet his eyes that I'll start crying again. Even when Donnie cheated on me, I wasn't this emotional. I don't think that I've cried this much in any given three week period since mom died. Or ever, since mom died.

"Kate?" Daniel says softly. "It wasn't a flashback, your dream, was it?"

I nod once and take a sip of the tea.

"What did you put into this? It's good." Better than anytime I've tried to make it.

"Bit of milk and honey. Water too. Melted the honey with the hot milk and water before I added in the tea bag. Adding in honey after the tea has started to steep usually cools it down too much. If you heat up the honey, it'll make it more liquid, make it mix in easier. And never use that refined white crap you put in your coffee."

"I don't always put milk and sugar in my coffee. I do when it's the fake coffee they have at the bureau." I slurp some more tea.

I don't like having Daniel in here, with my gun. Not when I wake up, my hand reaching for a gun that I don't have. Even before the arrest, there would be times that I would wake up with my gun in my hand, not remembering pulling it out. Leaving my tea to cool, I grab my backup piece and hand it to Daniel.

"Hide this somewhere."

"Kate, I don't-"

"Hide it. With the way I've been sleeping…" I swallow. "I don't want to accidently shoot you Daniel. Don't make that dream come true. Please." The end comes out as a whisper.

Daniel takes the gun without answering and I sit back at the table, closing my eyes while I sip my tea. I try to ignore the sounds of his footsteps, mapping out where he could be in my apartment by how far away he sounds. Eventually, he comes back, touching my shoulder to let me know that he is done.

We return to my room later, and Daniel sits next to me on my bed.

"The dream you had involved killing me." He states.

I can deal with answering to the obvious. No use denying things he's already convinced himself of. I'm too tired to argue.

"Yes." I murmur, wishing he'd wrap his arm around me so I'd have an excuse to lean my head on his shoulder.

"Have you told your therapist about it?"

"No. She knows the other dreams. I don't… You've slept with Caroline. I'm not telling someone that you slept with that I've had dreams where I kill you. Do you know what Freud would say about that?"

"Freud was an idiot who projected his own mother issues onto his own patients. But, if you want to go with Freud, you have pent up feelings of lust towards me, and want to have sex with me. Or something along those lines."

I smile at this. Freud's idea that dreaming about a weapon equated to sex was one that we had touched on briefly back in sophomore year when we discussed dreams from the neuropsychology view. Caroline was all about trying to talk me through the dreams, have me relive them so that I'd be able to 'change' them during the dreams, so that the things that terrorized me would stop being there.

Daniel puts a hand a few inches from my hip, the fabric of his sleeve just brushing my back. It's not exactly an arm around me, but for Daniel…

"So you won't tell Caroline because you think she'll be jealous of Freudian feelings? You could just make clear to her you don't have those feelings, like you did with me."

Only because he blindsided me and I panicked.

"I do not even want to have that conversation with someone you slept with."

"You are so certain I slept with her. What makes you that certain?"

"I'm a federal agent, Daniel." I sigh and scoot back just enough that his arm presses into my back.

Daniel moves his hand again so it sits on top of mine. When I finally turn to look at him, our faces are inches apart. I swallow hard, shoving any idea of him kissing me away. He kissed my forehead the afternoon before – a father kisses someone's forehead.

He's old enough to be my forehead technically.

"Its not just the discomfort that is stopping you, is it?"

"Talk therapy doesn't work for everyone. She just wants me to go over the dreams, a lot of which have just resurfaced that I haven't had in a while. Now that I've gotten one of my guns back, I can go deal with the PTSD-y crap that crops up with sharp noises. That is what will actually be a problem on a job."

"Lack of sleep?"

"I regularly sleep four or five hours when I'm working a case."

"Don't push yourself to hard, Kate. You probably have a load of paperwork to deal with when you get back. Not getting right back into the field…" Daniel pauses, and suddenly pulls away, standing. "Go back to sleep. It's late."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: And we're back to Daniel for now. Previously published just before Warriors aired, then changed this morning in stubborn response.

* * *

I can't look at Kate when she turns out the light. Even rolling over to see if she is falling back asleep terrifies me. When Donnie and I sat in his car and heard the gunshots, saw the flashes from it, I thought she had died. Seeing her lying on the floor was even worse until Donnie helped her up.

How can I tell her that I don't want her to be back on active duty so she won't get shot?

"Easy. Just say it." Natalie squats down beside me. "She might at least note your words. After all, you are sleeping on the floor as an 'experiment' to see if it'll keep her nightmares away. So far, it seems believable. I wonder what would happen if you actually slept in the same bed as her?"

I scowl. Like Kate would even agree to that. She had already made that clear.

Behind me Kate sighs and rearranges her covers.

"Daniel, why did you volunteer to spend the night here if it wasn't to provide comfort to her?"

If I speak to Natalie, and Kate is still awake, she'll know that I went to bed to avoid talking to her.

"That was obvious from how you did it, Daniel."

I turn my back Natalie, and wind up staring Kate's cat in the eyes. The furry beast meows and stick's its paw on my nose. I'd never had pictured Kate as being a cat person. Sure, seeing her as having some sort of animal to go home to at night was what I hoped she had. Kate being alone was not what I wanted for her.

Donnie seemed more like a dog person. The cat must have come into Kate's life after she moved back to Chicago.

"Grace, leave Daniel alone." Kate hisses.

The cat meows more insistently, and prods my face with its paw again.

"Grace." At her second call, the cat flicks its tail in my face and turns to jump up onto the bed, butting its head against Kate's chin with a loud purr.

* * *

I make it through the day of teaching cranky, demanding that Lewicki take my morning classes while I sit in his usual spot. My entire body aches from sleeping on the floor – or from trying to. It felt like I didn't sleep at all after I was up in the middle of the night. Kate and I didn't say a word while we ate breakfast and she drove me back to my house until she promised to stop by that evening.

"Doc, you okay?" Lewicki asks, unlocking the front door. "You've hardly done any crosswords today."

"My back hurts and I didn't sleep last night. It was Kate's therapist's idea that she spend the night with someone other than her cat. We're the only people she knows well enough other than her ex, and there was no way that I was going to let you or Donnie sleep with her."

"How did 'spend the night' go to 'sleeping with'? I don't understand that Doc."

"I slept on the floor. Hence the back hurting."

"He's just confused, Daniel. It wasn't clear how you said it."

"You know what Natalie? You're not helping." I snap, and yank on my headphones.

"Daniel?"

I yank back down the headphones – I didn't even have time to turn on my music! Turning around, I see Kate standing uncomfortably in the doorway. Next to me, Lewicki runs a hand over head with a sigh.

"You didn't have to stay last night, Daniel. It was just a stupid suggestion that Caroline made."

Lewicki's eyes widen, and he hurries up the stairs, off to his room somewhere. I motion Kate into the living room, and sit with her on the couch.

"But it did, Kate." I say, staring over her shoulder. "I knew how scared you were when you had td he dreams on my couch. And you crying last night… If that was the only dream you had, and that was because I was there…" I shrug. "I doubt that you would have had that good of a night if I hadn't been there. I… anything ever would happen to you… If you hadn't been wearing a vest…"

"It won't happen again." She sighs. "I doubt Caroline is going to sign off anytime soon. Her being the second one they've sent me to and all."

"Kate!" I sigh, frustrated.

"Just kiss her. I won't tell Lewicki." Natalie urges behind me.

"That isn't what I meant, Kate." I return. "I know your job is unsafe, but… I don't want you to think that my spending the night at your place inconvenienced me. Next time, we might both want to sleep on the bed."

"I don't understand. I thought that you didn't want-"

I break her off with what Natalie would call a 'real' kiss. Kate's eyes widen, and then she slides her hands behind my head, deepening the kiss. Holding her close, I lay on the couch.


End file.
